Photos by Mitch Kline
The Scene: Faith No More drew the short straw with the post Labor Day holiday weekend hangover slot at Red Rocks last Tuesday. Perhaps that explains why the place wasn’t packed for one of the best shows I’ve seen under The Rocks this summer. As I rolled into the park about an hour before openers Gogol Bordello were to take the stage, the upper south lot was already in the shadows of the hills to the West. A sparse lot scene was enjoying the absolutely perfect late summer evening. As the sun settled behind the hills to the west, I couldn’t help but notice that this was the one of the most mellow pre-show scenes I’ve experienced at Red Rocks.
Opener: Gogol Bordello. You know you’re at a late season Red Rocks show when it’s completely dark before the opener takes the stage, a rare treat for me as a photographer. Ukrainian singer and guitarist Eugene Hutz, who sported a shirt covered in Rasta colored pot leaves, led the gypsy punks from Manhattan, NY through a rowdy set, injecting some much needed energy into the slowly filling venue.
Faith No More: Despite being overshadowed by their early ‘90s peers (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails), Faith No More, and Mike Patton in particular, defined a significant part of my college music experiences. I came home bruised, battered, and grinning ear to ear after seeing them for the first time in 1992.
While Sol Invictus (released in May on Ipecac), the first studio album from Faith No More since 1997, certainly won’t be their most commercially successful album, it might just be their finest. This band has aged well. Hell, it feels like they never went away. Many of the songs on Sol Invictus feel immediately at home with this long time fan. I was anxious to see how they translated to the live show.
Not surprisingly, “Motherfucker”, a scathing song about accountability, opened things up, with keyboardist Roddy Bottum chanting the opening lines before the rest of the band, all dressed in white from head to toe, sauntered onto stage. Speaker stacks were also draped in white, and the band was surrounded by fresh flowers, setting a stark contrast with the music. But this band knows full well that they’d never be able to get away with a simple parade of new songs. By the time they got to a late set cover of The Commodore’s “Easy,” a song that appears on some pressings of Angel Dust, they had blasted through their biggest “hits” like “Be Aggressive,” “Caffeine,” “Everything’s Ruined,” “Epic,” and “Midlife Crisis,” which was twisted into a lounge act with Disco lights. Mike Patton prowled the stage, growling, chanting, and barking into a megaphone with all the ferocity (and stage banter) you’d expect, riding the crowd nearly to the soundboard at one point in the set. The band was tight throughout the entire set. Really tight.
An intense “Superhero” closed out the set proper, leaving this crowd begging for more. A three song encore, kicked off by a cover of Herb Alpert’s classic “This Guy’s In Love With You,” then dropped into the slow burning “Matador” from Sol Invictus. A closing “We Care a Lot” put an exclamation point on the fact that Faith No More has a lot more music left in them. While I didn’t come home battered and bruised this time around, that ear-to-ear smile was once again plastered across my face.
Energy: A
Musicianship: A+
Sound: A
Stage Presence: A
Set/Light Show: B+
Overall: A
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